12/30/2013

This site has now been around for two firings of Mike Shanahan. I doubt it will be around for a third. In the eight years since I put this website up Mike Shanahan drove the Denver Broncos into the ground, was fired, and then went to Washington and squandered whatever legacy he had left.

There is an emerging narrative that the problem with this Redskins team was its owner, Daniel Snyder. This morning on Denver talk radio I heard a local host make the claim that the problem with Mike Shanahan's career was that he worked for two "crazy owners" outside of Denver in Snyder and Oakland's Al Davis.

Of course, the truth is that Mike Shanahan caught lightning in a bottle when he returned to Denver and won two Super Bowls with John Elway. After Elway retired, Shanahan's record as a head coach, in both Denver and Washington, was as pathetic as it was in Oakland.

Shanahan is a narcissist and places himself above the team and its players. This is apparent in his reckless behavior with RGIII, his lack of loyalty to players like Jake Plummer, his lack of respect for his superiors like Dan Reeves and Daniel Snyder, and his constant nepotism and cronyism.

I'd like to suggest the following about head coaches in the NFL.

1) Players should mean more than coaches and deserve more fan loyalty and respect than coaches.
2) Coaches are more likely to subtract from a team's talent level than they are to add to it, especially if that coach has total control over an organization.
3) Reputation is meaningless and driven by media narratives that have little basis in reality.
4) Re-hiring coaches like Shanahan is harmful to the game and leads to the stagnation of franchises.

1/06/2013

I'm not surprised at all that Mike Shanahan risked RGIII's career in an attempt to win a Wild Card Round game.
Mike Shanahan does not care about his players, they are a means to an end, and that end is Mike Shanahan's further employment.

3/11/2012

I've got to give it to Mike Shanahan. He's so bad at the NFL draft that he decided to simply not worry about picking in the first round until 2015. Is RG3 worth those picks? Nah, only because no rookie quarterback would be. It's a brilliant move by Shanahan though if you assume his goal has never been to win Super Bowls but to simply stay in charge of an NFL team by any means necessary.

Back in the mountain time zone, John Elway is busy offering up guaranteed cash to a 36 year old coming off four neck surgeries without doing any due diligence whatsoever.

12/19/2010

We all know the story of the "wonderful Wizard of Oz" who was supposedly all-knowing and all powerful. Except, when Dorothy pulled back the curtain, he was just a timid nobody! Well, you can draw an analogy with Shanahan and the curtain that was pulled back? That would be John Elway!! As many pundits have asked, what has he won since Elway retired? His son is a joke. Keyshawn Johnson said on ESPN that he had some low-level non-job with the Tampa Bay Bucaneers, and then Gary Kubiak hired him as a favor to Mike Shanahan, who was at one time Kubiak's mentor. (And we all know how well Gary Kubiak has been doing!). The whole crew need to be shown the door. Oh, well maybe Jim Haslett is okay.

Junebug writes:

Mike is NOT a good coach. What he's doing with the Redskins is not coaching, it is terrorism. He and his incompetent son and coaching staff have done more brow-beating and tearing down than they have coaching. The man is un-professional for calling out players in the media. This doesn't build repoir or team spirit, it tears down the locker room. He is doing to the Redskins the equivalent of what George W. Bush did to the economy - wrecking it! Daniel Snyder should take one for the team and pay out his contract and get on one knee and BEG Marty Schottenheimer (yes, the only true winner) to come back and re-build this franchise. Shanahan must go, this year!

A mediocre season filled with close games his team should have won, terrible fourth quarter playcalling, throwing players under the bus in public, creation of multiple scapegoats to shift criticism away from the coaching staff.

Yep, sounds like a Mike Shanahan season to me.

Shanahan is a bad coach who got lucky he had Steve Young and John Elway to bail him out for his bad decisions.

If I was Redskins fan I'd be praying for him to be fired this off season.